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Chapter 64
Courtesy
The impact wasn’t too severe. Still, because someone had wrapped an arm around her waist and rolled with her, her head throbbed. She gasped heavily for breath.
Her whole body hurt. She pressed a hand against the chest of the one who had caught her. And then Diana saw Guiscard lying beneath her. Guiscard lifted his head, staring up at Diana’s face. For some reason, the moment their eyes met, he too froze.
Only then did Diana truly see his face. She had always thought him grown, but now she noticed how young it still was. Yet, why was it? In her eyes, he didn’t look like the monster from her past life, but rather like the clumsy boy who had once desperately tried to protect her. Unknowingly, she found herself following that image.
“Your Majesty. Please take control of the situation.”
At those words, Diana snapped back to her senses and quickly stood up. Guiscard also rose to his feet.
“Shall I order the archers to standby?”
“No.”
Guiscard shook his head. He stretched out a hand, and a knight handed him a spear. It was a massive lance, heavy and tall enough to match Diana’s height.
“You’ll get hurt standing here. This way.”
The knight’s voice, urging Guiscard to move, carried a faint edge of irritation. Diana went toward him. When she glanced at the knight, he furrowed his brows and avoided her gaze.
Guiscard lifted the enormous spear and strode forward. Sparks crackled as the spear’s tip scraped the ground. Soon, he raised it and braced himself.
His firm muscles flexed, and then with immense power, he hurled the lance. The wind roared with its force.
With tremendous speed, the spear pierced straight through the wyvern in the air. Blood rained down in sheets.
Kieeeeeehk!
The wyvern let out a terrible, indescribable scream as it died. At the same time, another wyvern shrieked its death cry.
Diana’s eyes widened as she stared at Guiscard. She had seen him wield a sword before, but never display such raw strength.
This wasn’t a short throwing spear—it was a heavy war lance, yet he had thrown it and slain the beast. Truly, he was powerful enough to have killed the poison dragon even in this second life.
When Guiscard turned to Diana, he seemed to realize something, letting out a soft “Ah.” Diana’s appearance was a mess. Of course, everyone was disheveled, but the problem was that the wyvern’s blood had splattered near her.
As a result, her clothes were soaked in blood. She glanced down at herself. Guiscard accepted a cloth from someone and carefully wiped the blood from her.
Diana quietly allowed his touch. The wyvern’s screams still echoed in her ears.
“To suddenly leap down like that—did you want to die so badly?”
As expected, Guiscard’s voice carried cold anger.
“Better to throw myself to death than be eaten alive.”
Her retort hissed out, and the air grew heavy. Diana turned to head back to her carriage—only to see there was no carriage left. It had been utterly destroyed in the attack. She sighed softly and looked at Guiscard.
“I really didn’t want to say this but…”
“……”
“Does His Majesty’s march usually go like this?”
It hadn’t been this bad in Farnborough. She had almost died in the monster subjugation in Taliah, but even that hadn’t been like this. Strangely, even amid all this, irritation still welled up inside her, beyond her control. She spoke anyway, ready to endure a sarcastic, “What else could a sheltered noble lady expect?”
But Guiscard turned his head away, almost as if to avoid her gaze. Escorting a criminal wasn’t expected to be a silk-paved road. Yet this wasn’t just hardship for her—this was grueling even for the king and knights. Why put themselves through this?
“Horses will be brought!”
Logafl shouted. In the end, they would ride. The people hurried to manage the situation. There were injuries, but thankfully no deaths.
The knights glanced at Diana strangely, exchanging looks.
When they mounted their horses one by one, Diana frowned.
The carriage horses were all injured. There were no spares. She approached Logafl, about to ask for a lift, when a rough hand seized her wrist. Before she could react, a hand pressed against her waist and lifted her onto a horse.
“……”
Meeting her wordless gaze, Guiscard spoke.
“In the next city, I’ll prepare a new carriage. And clothes, as well.”
“……”
Diana said nothing. New clothes? A new carriage? Was she supposed to be grateful she wasn’t bound and dragged? Bitter thoughts filled her mind.
Guiscard mounted the horse behind her.
This wasn’t the Abyssal Forest, so why the monster attack…? Things were so different from her previous life. She had thought only of how she might die, but she had no chance now to even consider suicide.
Adjusting her riding posture, Diana let out a silent sigh. She was exhausted. Her body shivered faintly. But she refused to collapse disgracefully here.
Behind her, she felt the massive bulk of the man seated close, towering like a mountain.
The wind blew, and her hair brushed against his hand. She felt him flinch slightly.
But Diana was simply too tired to care.
***
“What… what’s going on here?”
One of Vargahati’s knights muttered as he watched Guiscard with Diana. Diana Brienne—the Duke of Farnborough’s eldest daughter. Her face was well-known, plastered all over wanted posters. And now, to hear she would become the king’s wife? The thought alone was outrageous.
And what was with her attitude? Complaints, sulking, blatant disrespect even toward His Majesty. Whenever Guiscard spoke to her, Diana answered softly, but her face held no anger, no grief, no fear.
“She still treats His Majesty like a slave.”
“The daughter of a traitor…”
The knights ground their teeth as they glared. What angered them most was the impression that their sovereign, their king, was flustered by her.
“His Majesty must truly like her…”
Logafl muttered cheerfully with a smile. The other knights immediately glared daggers at him.
“What nonsense are you spouting?”
“But she’s also the one who saved His Majesty, isn’t she?”
“And yet, she’s also the bloodline of the one who ruined him.”
The knights spoke sternly. For nobles, blood mattered most. The sins of a father passed naturally to his children. By that law, Diana Brienne should have died with Duke Brienne.
But instead, she fled—and then tried to die on her own terms. Even that, attempting to escape punishment, was a crime.
“Come on, she must not have agreed with her father’s methods, that’s why she was spared.”
Logafl defended her.
“You sure take her side a lot, don’t you? You little brat!”
Aines, who was close with Logafl, hooked an arm around his neck.
“She didn’t seem like a bad person. And she’s bold too.”
“Huh?”
“When she jumped down instead of being carried off alive by the wyvern—I was impressed. Who else would do that?”
What kind of woman, in such a moment, would leap without hesitation? She had seemed like a fragile noblewoman from Farnborough, but she had surprising resolve. Even the knights grudgingly admitted there was courage there.
In the Kingdom of Lodbrok, courage was valued above all.
“Still, Sid—if you hadn’t neglected guarding the carriage…”
A knight scolded one of their own.
“Ugh, I-I was wrong!”
***
“We’ve arrived.”
At Logafl’s words, Diana opened the carriage window. A cool breeze blew in. She stepped down at last. The capital loomed ahead. Compared to Farnborough’s glittering splendor, it looked stark and barren.
Such was the Kingdom of Lodbrok. Resources were scarce, survival always the priority, so it looked underdeveloped. The only thing advanced was their well-paved roads, made for marching armies. Diana felt the gazes of people staring at her.
“Quite different from bright Farnborough, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Diana gave Ruthphil a faint smile.
“So, I’ve finally arrived.”
In hell.
Because it was the capital, the roads were in perfect order, and the carriage glided smoothly, even quickly, along them. Once it stopped, it sat there for some time.
The crowd outside was noisy. Logafl had already stepped out to handle things, while Diana sank into her thoughts.
The harsh journey had dulled her despair about the future and her suicidal impulses, but now they crept back.
Now comes the palace. Here begins the humiliation.
How should she die?
At the very least, before they clasped a slave collar around her neck. She didn’t want to become a display piece, laughed at as his trophy bride. She didn’t want to be dragged around like a puppet of fate. Already, she felt too weak to even rise.
Just then—creak—the carriage door opened.
“Please step down.”
“……”
Guiscard extended his hand. Strange. In that instant, Diana realized something was different.
In her past life, she had arrived sick and fevered, carried like baggage. Even then, her wrists had been bound.
But now, her hands were free. And she took his hand as she descended.
This was courtesy.
Diana weakly accepted his hand.
Blinking in the sunlight, she squinted. Guiscard’s grip on her hand tightened.
It was strange. In her past life, it had rained when she was taken to the palace. Even as he dragged her away, rain had fallen. But now, the sky was bright and clear.
The framework of fate remained the same—but the people within it had begun to change.
